Neuropsychological functioning in hemiparkinsonism

A standardized neuropsychological battery including measures of intellectual cognitive, memory, attention-concentration, language, abstraction and mental flexibility, and sensory and motor functions was administered to 21 hemiparkinsonian patients (14 with right side and 7 with left side symptoms) and 17 controls matched for age and education. Patients were impaired in all functions except sensory. For motor functions, impairment was ipsilateral to the side of symptoms. For cognitive functions, right side symptoms were associated with verbal deficits whereas left side symptoms were associated with spatial deficits. Thus, a pattern of neuropsychological deficits consistent with the lateralization of motor symptoms may appear in the early stages of the disease.     

Appetitive differential conditioning of the rabbit’s jaw movement response

Two experiments examined appetitive differential conditioning of the rabbit’s jaw movement response (JMR) in a two-phase procedure. The first phase entailed reinforced training with one conditioned stimulus (CS+), and the second phase involved intermixed presentations of CS+ and an unreinforced stimulus (CS?). In Experiment 1, CS+ was a 600-Hz tone, and CS-was either a 660-,1,000-, or 2,100-Hz tone. In Experiment 2, the magnitude of the water unconditioned stimulus (US) paired with CS+ was either 1, 3, or 9 ml. The experiments revealed that 1) the level of responding to CS-rose for several days and then declined over the remainder of training; 2) the physical similarity between CS+ and CS?directly affected the level of responding to CS?but had no discernable effect on the level of responding to CS+ ; and 3) US magnitude positively affected the level of responding to CS + and, to a lesser extent, CS?. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for Spence’s gradient interaction theory and Pavlov’s external inhibition hypothesis.     

Information Consistency and Perceptual Set: Overcoming the Mental Retardation “Schema”1

Two factors that were thought to promote or inhibit schema-based or stereotypic responding in impression formation were examined in two experiments. Subjects were asked to provide evaluations of artwork supposedly painted by either mentally retarded or nonretarded children. Based on previous research, it was assumed that subjects would expect relatively poor quality artwork from retarded children, which would he consistent with a negative schema that they maintain for this group. It was also predicted that this negative schema would result in cursory examinations and unfavorable evaluations of the retarded artists' artwork, but only when the evaluative conditions were conducive to schematic responding. Specifically, the schema effect was predicted to occur when the artwork was of poor quality and subjects were instructed to provide an overall evaluation of the painting rather than an assessment of its specific characteristics. No derogation was expected when these factors were not present. Results supported these hypotheses. Additional analyses indicated that subjects were conducting a cursory search of the target stimuli when conditions favored schema-based responding.     

视觉诱发电位(VEP)对不同频率条纹的反差敏感性

本实验利用条纹发生器产生正弦调制的条纹作视觉刺激,用NICOLETCA—1000平均仪,从枕骨隆起上方沿中线5cm处记录瞬态视觉诱发电位。实验用四种不同反差,十种空间频率,四名被试。结果表明瞬态视觉诱发电位(C_1—C_2)的峰值随反差的增加而变化,其在空间频率上有一定的分布,最敏感处落在3—5C/deg。在阈上刺激时,被试个体有差异,但分布趋势相似,最敏感处也为3—5C/deg,这和心理物理实验获得的调制传递函数(MTF)结果很吻合。从实验结果可以看到(C_1—C_2)值对反差变化是敏感的,它反映了人视觉系统对不同空间频率上的反差敏感性,可以把它与MTF相类比。     

Space-based visual attention models and object selection: Constraints,problems, and possible solutions

Summary One of the functions of visual attention is the selection of object information. This seems to be in line with an influential group of attentional models that assume that attentional selection is space based. These models assume that the selection of an object in vision is realized by selection of the location of that object. Whether this relatively simple idea of space-based attention and the corresponding, more elaborated space-based models are sufficient to handle selected constraints and problems of object selection is the main issue of this article. The first step toward an answer is to describe the common computational structure of space-based attentional models. Two model classes will be distinguished: capacity-limited models (e.g., Treisman, 1988; LaBerge & Brown, 1989) and models that do not assume a capacity limitation (e. g., Van der Heijden, 1992). Next, three kinds of task and data on object selection are introduced that are especially challenging for space-based models. The first type of data refers to experiments that require selection between overlapping objects. The second type of data concerns the influence of early perceptual grouping - a strong object-defining factor- on late response competition, and the third type consists of a selection task in which a high-level (semantic) attribute defines an object and controls selection. In all three cases, problems of space-based models are analyzed and possible solutions are sketched. Finally, a brief evaluative summary is given.     

双眼深度感知与图像元素数量的关系

用微机化的伪随机点立体图对发生器产生静态和动态随机点立体图对(RDS),显示在左右两个示波器上。RDS图形中的元素密度可以改变。具有正常立体视的10名被试通过立体镜观察这些图形,测量双眼融合能产生完整立体图形感知所需最小的元素密度,即密度容限。 设计了三个实验用以检测改变RDS图形的空间参数对密度客限的影响。第一个实验,在静、动态RDS图形下,改变视差图形面积;第二个实验,改变视差图形的形状;第三个实验,改变视差图形的周长。 实验结果表明,双眼深度感知要求一定的元素密度容限,视差图形的大小和形状对密度容限有一定程度的影响。静态和动态RDS图形的密度容限也不相同。 本文利用RDS的整体立体感知特性和空间频率通道理论对实验结果进行了讨论。     

Motor skill acquisition and retention as a function of average feedback, summary feedback, and performance variability

Summary feedback involves withholding feedback from subjects until the last trial in a block is completed, and then presenting feedback about each trial. A variation of this method, called average feedback (Young & Schmidt, 1992), presents subjects with only the mean of the trial block. We investigated whether these methods have similar effects on acquisition and retention of a simple motor skill. Five groups of subjects (n = 16 per group) performed 60 acquisition trials of an aiming task involving both spatial and temporal accuracy. We presented average and summary feedback based on either 5-trial blocks or 15-trial blocks and compared these schedules with every-trial feedback. During acquisition, all groups improved with practice, with a slight tendency for the every-trial condition to have less absolute error than the longer summary and average conditions. Analysis of delayed no-feedback retention tests, however, revealed a strong advantage for the 5-trial summary and average conditions compared with the every-trial condition. In addition, we found that for long blocks of acquisition trials without augmented feedback, the performance variability of those trials was associated with retention performance. Results are discussed in terms of how these different manipulations may make feedback less useful during acquisition, but foster the use of certain information processing activities that enhance overall learning.     

A revised list of Spanish translations of operant terminology

The experimental analysis of behavior has grown enormously in Latin America within the last decade. This paper offers an updating revision of suggested Spanish translations of operant expressions.     

对中学生创造力的测验研究

本研究以《中学生创造性思惟练习》施测于812名中学生,并请教师对学生的创造性进行评定,然后将《练习》分数和评定等级与有关因素加以比较,结果表明: 1.用《练习》来评鉴中学生的创造力是可信并有效的。2.中学生的创造力呈正态分布。3.创造力高的学生具有某些共同的人格特征。4.学生的创造力与学习成绩有相关,但相关不很高。5.中学生在创造思惟的变通性上表现出男优于女的倾向,其他方面的差异不显著。6.独生与非独生子女在创造力上无差异。7.学生中干部的创造力高于非干部。